Proper
by alp crim
Summary: She was reclined on a couch with a book in her lap when Kingsley Shackebolt brought him in, frail and stumbling, eyes halflidded, through the door of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.
1. Proper

**Author:** alptigerx

**Title:** Proper (1/1)

**Rating:** PG

**Pairing:** Draco/Hermione

**WARNINGS:** Death, a pathetic shot at angst.

_i. the beginning_

She was reclined on a couch with a book in her lap when Kingsley Shackebolt brought him in, frail and stumbling, eyes half-lidded, through the door of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

_Draco Malfoy._

His hair hung in grimy white-blonde wisps about his head, no longer the smooth silk she remembered from Hogwarts, and his face looked flush from exertion. A faint sheen of perspiration covered his sallow brow, and she realized that the Auror was the only thing keeping Malfoy from hitting the floor.

"What happened to him?"

Shacklebolt shot her a long, calculating look before he replied. "Cruciatus."

_Oh._

_ii. set it aside_

She twiddled her wand at the dishes absently on her way past the kitchen, not bothering to glance at the plates as they began to scrub themselves clean. When she sat on his bed, it was with a glass of cool water in one hand and a damp washcloth in the other.

He wouldn't speak to her – to anyone, for that matter – and that compelled her to begin conversation. She spoke of mundane things, such as the weather and how useless it was to even try to clean. She brought him biscuits and tea every day. She touched him – brief touches, feather light touches to his brow, on his arm, a caress at his shoulder.

She itched to twirl a strand of platinum corn silk through her fingers. It was slowly beginning to shine again.

_iii._ _of days long past_

She brought him a game of wizard's chess and some books. Watching as she arched an eyebrow in mock challenge, he opted instead to quietly turn and inspect the books. They were Muggle novels, and he felt a fleeting quirk at his mouth. The spines bent with use, a couple of pages dog-eared, but he didn't mind. He observed the cover of one, unable to tear his eyes from the undeniably sensual cover of _Lady Chatterley's Lover_.

She was persistent, though. _Just one game. I'll shut up._

After some needling, he hesitantly directed a knight to its ghastly doom.

_iv. time runs _

She scrutinized him carefully under her lashes. He was excellent at wizard's chess, and although her books were lying on the floor beside his bed, she could tell he rifled through them. There were more dog-ears than she remembered.

His halo of white-blonde was back. It was long, and he liked to look at her through his fringe. She could feel the crackle of his old arrogance in the air.

His eyes were steely, but she wouldn't break.

_When did this become a test of power?_

She began to hum.

_v. the best of us_

They were ambushed, and the losses were paramount. Remus was gone. Tonks was a wreck. Shacklebolt was taken. Harry was crippled. Ron was dead.

He stared at her through that fringe, his face carefully neutral. She returned his stare and set his plate of biscuits and a cup of tea on the table as if to inquire, _What?_

She didn't break in front of him.

Later that night, she curled up in bed under her comforter and leaked a continuous stream of tears into her pillow.

_vi. the last of me_

She didn't come to see him the next day or the day after. He wondered where she was, but he didn't deign it proper to ask.

She would come back.

In the meantime, he would polish off his game of wizard's chess and bend the spines of those books again, just for good measure. He rather wanted to reread _Lady Chatterley's Lover_ anyway.

_vii. over_

It was three weeks before Ginny Weasley knocked softly on his door. Her hair was bedraggled and matted in filth. Purple craters made themselves at home beneath her amplified eyes. He didn't need a second glance at the half-mad look in her eyes or the evidence of grief on her face to know.

_She wouldn't come back._

The war was over. Harry bloody Potter took out the Dark Lord in one fell swoop, but not before he slit the throat of the brunette witch standing on the sidelines with a well-practiced _Sectumsempra._

Draco Malfoy turned himself out into the world for the first time in three years. The sky was just as blue as he remembered, the clouds just as white. The buildings were just as tall, the air just as welcoming.

He didn't deign it proper to recognize the hollow feeling in his chest, and he didn't deign it proper to mourn.

And so, he went on with his life, humming a tune that was left to him, a book in his hand and a game of wizard's chess locked in his bag.

_fin._


	2. Memory

This is the sequel to **Proper** that I wasn't planning on writing. I know I haven't updated… anything at all, really… in the past year? I know it's shameful, and I don't have an acceptable excuse. I just come bearing a gift, written at 3:00AM.

**Memory**

**Disclaimer:** Didn't own it then. Don't own it now.

Draco Malfoy tapped his quill idly against the edge of his desk, unnaturally messy for one reason or another. He had been in the process of writing a rather irate letter to the Ministry of Magic when his inspiration had been shot through the heart.

Sadly, all it had taken was his usage of a single word.

_Proper_.

It was the word he would have used to define her very being. Of course, there was always the obligatory _prude_ that usually accompanied their verbal spars of auld, but those days were things of the past.

Hermione Jane Granger.

Even her _name_ was proper — proper and plain. She was Plain Jane Granger, so why did he miss her so damn much?

She was long gone. It had been seven years since the day Ginny Weasley had stumbled into his room, seven years since the day he realized she had died.

Steely eyes slid over the chaos that cluttered his workspace, settling on the photograph situated in the farthest left corner of his desk, adjacent to a large stack of papers he had yet to sort through.

It was a Muggle photograph, but he really could not have cared less. He didn't exactly like many Muggles, but nowadays it was more due to the fact that he didn't care for their personalities. Granger had been a Mudblood, and he had — as much as he hated to admit it — cared for her.

Hermione sat in the shade of a magnolia tree, bright and cheery in a yellow sundress. Her dainty feet were adorned with little white sandals, and she looked relaxed, leaning back on her hands with her legs crossed at the ankles. She had pinned her hair up in an odd sort of twist — something most likely Muggle since he had never seen such a style before — and she was smiling.

Merlin, he missed her.

It had been seven years, and he had yet to find someone he really cared for. He and Granger had barely ever touched! She had skimmed her fingers along his shoulders, always fleetingly, and that had been it. He didn't understand why he missed her so much, or why her memory lingered.

Cleverest witch of their age.

A Muggle-born.

"You need to get back to work."

Draco didn't bother glancing up from the photograph. He missed her smile more than anything, and Blaise could shove a stick up his own arse for all he cared.

"I will."

With a scoff, Blaise turned around and closed the door behind him even though they both knew Draco would do no such thing.

Seven years, and it still just seemed like yesterday.

Ginny stumbled into his room after a soft knock, half-crazed, filthy, dirty, her hands stained with blood.

_She wouldn't come back._

Damn her.

Damn her to _hell_.

Didn't she know he fucking _needed _her there?


End file.
